


Last Rites

by savithny



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cancer, Gen, NotADelicateWayToGo, dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-06 23:41:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savithny/pseuds/savithny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If TV were more like real life, this is how "Gethsemane's"  cliffhanger would be resolved.  Mulder returns to an unpleasant truth.  Mulderangst.<br/>Spoilers: Gethsemane</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Rites

Disclaimer: Characters within are the property of FOX-TV, 1013, CC, and other people who are not me.  They are used respectfully, but without permission. 

Last Rites 

Rating: PG (no sex,violence, or language, just some unpleasant realities) 

Keywords: Character dies. 

Spoilers: Gethsemane 

The tone in Skinner's voice should have tipped him off. 

Mulder had resurfaced, three months after his "death," having accomplished most of what he had set out to do.  The shock of his supposed suicide had led several of the Consortium's most powerful members into dangerous mistakes;  the Cancerman had simply disappeared from the picture. 

But the only thing that he'd really wanted hadn't happened.  He'd waited and waited for some sign that Scully's death sentence had been lifted. He'd left her just as much in the dark, fearing that they might be able to sense from her demeanor that he was alive, needing her to help prove to them that he wasn't.  They wouldn't need to kill her any more if he was dead, he reasoned. 

Unfortunately, without him they also had no reason to save her.  And finally, word that she'd been admitted to the hospital had drawn him out of hiding.  He had shaved and dressed and walked into the J. Edgar Hoover building in his best suit and brightest tie.  Whispers and slack-jawed stares trailed behind him as he made his way to Skinner's office.  The secretary took three tries to press the right intercom button, and her announcement was really a question: "Agent . . . Mulder? . . . to see you, sir?" 

Skinner had been uninterested in the explanation he offered; as soon as he verified that Mulder was himself, his jaw had set so firmly that it didn't move when he said, "Agent Scully is at Bethesda Hospital, if you'd like to tell her the news yourself."  Then he turned pointedly to the work on his desk, making it clear that Mulder was to show himself out. 

At the hospital, he stepped into a elevator crowded with people carrying stuffed animals, flowers, and "It's a Girl!" Mylar balloons.  They were handing a pile of Polaroids around, laughing while the proud father described his daughter's birth. 

They fell silent when Mulder reached between them and pressed the button for the eighth floor.  Everyone remained quiet, no one meeting his eye, until he stepped out at his stop and the doors were closing behind him; then he could hear them continue their lighthearted discussion.   

The smell hit him hard.  It was stronger than the smell of the wards he remembered being on himself.  Those halls had smelled antiseptic, like freshly-opened sterile packages of gauze and tape and plastic.  Those smells were still here, but were strongly overwritten with urine and vomit and ammonia-cleaners and decay.   

It smelled like death.  Fear and death and people turning rancid from the inside out. 

The rooms off this hall were mostly singles.  In some, stubble-headed patients sat, watching TV or talking with visitors.  In others, small family groups gathered around beds lain flat and edged with padding, softly talking to the figure inside.  The groups in each room were small, because the rooms seemed cramped and dark, with barely enough space for the large hospital beds, let alone visitors. 

Overwhelmed with the smell, he nearly bumped into a nurse as he rounded a corner, and in avoiding her, he backed into an IV pole being pushed by a skeletal patient wearing sweatpants under his hospital gown and apparently doing laps of the floor for exercise. 

He finally found room 810.  The door was slightly ajar, and when he pushed it open, he saw that it was a tiny single room just like those he'd seen near the elevator.  The bed took up most of the available space, with just enough room to walk around it, or to sit in one of the small plastic chairs that were stacked in a corner.  The drawers and surface of the dresser were built into the wall, too far away to reach from the bed, and so all the personal bits and pieces a patient might need were stacked on the adjustable bed tray.  It was smaller and bleaker than any college dormitory he'd ever been in, and he hoped that whoever designed it would someday be sentenced to spend eternity in an identical room.  Or just have to die in one. 

The only light came through the door of the small bathroom, since the only window was set back in a recess behind the head of the bed, where the minimal view could do nothing to distract a patient in the bed. He couldn't see the window, but he could see that there was a padded chair in the corner, next to it.  It was the only comfortable chair in the room, and it looked like Margaret Scully was napping in it. 

Scully was asleep, too. Her hair hung across her face, limp and stringy. She had hair, though -- she had apparently insisted on not having chemotherapy, even as her condition worsened.  She'd lost a lot of weight, he realized, taking in her sunken eyes and prominent bones.  Her elbows appeared like large knots in the thin strings of her arms, and her knees were drawn up awkwardly, probably to take her remaining weight off her hipbones to ward off bedsores. 

She stirred slightly, and he took another step towards the bed.  But then Margaret Scully spoke. 

"Shhh. Bill, don't wake her." 

Mulder started to speak, to tell her it wasn't Bill, but she swiveled the chair first and saw him.  Her response surprised him.  She didn't stammer, or gasp.  She just looked at him with a horrible anger and said "Now you're here.  Much good may it do you -- or her." 

"Mrs. Scully...." 

"I don't need this right now.  I think you should leave." 

"I'm sorry, I just..." 

"MOM!"  the shout from the bed distracted them both.  Mulder looked over, wanting Scully to see him, to know he was there, to let him explain. Wanting her to know how sorry he was. 

She was sitting absolutely upright and had pulled the oxygen mask off her face.  Her eyes were open, wide and blue, but there was no comprehension in them.  They stared out at nothing, and it was obvious they no longer worked. 

"Oh, god Mom... not again."  Scully's chest heaved several times as Margaret scrambled for something by the bed, coming up with a handful of toweling just in time to catch the mess as she spit up a seemingly impossible amount of blood.  Margaret held her daughter's head, murmuring softly, as Dana shook and coughed and shook, but her gaze was directed at Mulder, and he obeyed its command and backed out the door. 

He couldn't be there, couldn't stay to see Scully in such a state, but he knew he couldn't leave until he'd spoken to her.  And he didn't want to run the gauntlet of open doors revealing dying people again. He leaned against the wall of the hallway, feeling the cool bricks against the back of his head, concentrating on that sensation. 

He was still sitting on the floor outside the room long afterward, forehead pressed to his knees, when a pair of well-polished wingtips appeared in his view right in front of his own. 

"Agent Mulder?"  Skinner's hand on his shoulder was gentle, but he couldn't look up. 

"Mulder, they can't put the dinner trays away with you sitting there." The pressure on his shoulder increased slightly.  He tried to surreptitiously wipe his face on his sleeve as he looked up.  Skinner was clearly not fooled, because he handed Mulder a fresh handkerchief and stepped away to give him room to get up and space to compose himself. 

"Come on, let's get you some coffee." 

At the end of the hall there was a small lounge.  It was equipped to fill the needs of patients and their family members who were spending long hours there --  with a microwave, refrigerator, and cupboard of individual-serving soup cans, packaged crackers, peanut butter, and such. Skinner dropped a bill into a margarine tub next to the coffeepot and poured two large cups.  With a certainty that was obviously the result of many visits, he reached into the cupboard without looking and came out with a handful of sugar packets, which he handed to Mulder.  Mulder opened the refrigerator looking for cream, saw that it was stacked full of cans of Ensure, and decided to take his coffee black. 

They sat for a while in silence on the orange vinyl chairs.  Mulder stared into his cup, trying to regain enough control to speak to Skinner without his voice cracking. 

"Why didn't you tell me?  Why did you let me walk in here without any warning?" he asked. 

"Because I thought that you deserved it."  Skinner said shortly.  "I'm sorry, Mulder.  I was wrong. No one deserves that, even after what you did." 

"How long... I mean, how is she?" 

"The brain tumor has engulfed her optic nerve, blinding her.  It's still growing.  And metastases are showing up everywhere -- liver, lungs.  She hasn't been able to eat solid food for nearly two weeks, and she's on 40% oxygen." 

"Can I see her?  Will she . . . even know me?" 

"She's been sleeping more and more.  She's sometimes confused.  But I'll talk to Margaret...."  Mulder winced at the unspoken conclusion: 'and see if she'll let you in the room.' 

Skinner left him then, to go to Scully's room.  Mulder stared into his cup for an interminable time, picking bits of styrofoam off of the edges and piling them on a napkin, trying to bring up a picture of a happy, healthy, whole Scully in his head.  He had to go back much farther in his memory than was pleasant.  Partnership with him had made her more solemn each year.  Of course, the deaths of her sister, her friend, and then her own illness hadn't helped. 

Skinner returned at last, followed by Margaret Scully.  She, too had lost weight.  She was pale and faded, and seemed to have aged years in the last few months.  She looked up at Mulder with a tired smile.  "Mr. Skinner has explained things.  I'm so glad you're safe."  And she open her arms to him in a hug. 

Mulder looked a question at Skinner over her shoulder.  Skinner held a hand to his lips and said "We're all glad that we were able to convince the people holding Agent Mulder to release him.  Now we'll need to show that he shot the man in his apartment in self-defense, but that shouldn't be a problem." 

Skinner was lying to Scully's mom for him.  Scully's mom didn't know that he'd chosen to let everyone, even his partner, think he'd eaten his gun. The compassion in her voice, the firmness of her embrace, brought tears of guilt to his eyes. 

"She's missed you so, Fox." Mrs. Scully told him.  "She's awake now, and eager to see you." 

Eager was too strong a word, yet not strong enough.  Scully's hand grabbed at his offered one like a lifeline, and then he leaned over the bed, trying awkwardly to hug her as she wrapped both frail arms around his neck and whispered words that made his heart ache. 

"I really thought you were dead, Mulder.  At first, I didn't think the body could be yours, but I knew you'd never...." 

Never leave her to face this alone...  his mind finished as her voice trailed off.  Even now, she was trying to retain the composure that made her legendary among her fellow agents, and though her blind eyes were blinking with tears, she was resisting them so hard that he could feel her chest tighten with the effort. 

He sat by her bed, holding her hand and talking quietly to her.  She was too weak to say much, but every time his grip loosened, he could feel her squeezing gently to make sure he was still there.  She seemed to drowse from time to time, but each time she roused she was fully aware of him and whatever he'd been saying or doing. 

"Mulder?"  she asked.  He'd let his voice trail off and for some time had been staring out the tiny window at the view of the loading docks that it offered, watching the reflection of the setting sun against the metal doors. 

"Yes?" 

"How did you get here?  How did they let you go?" 

Letting Skinner lie for him was bad enough, but now Scully was asking him outright what had happened.  And he had to either tell her that he'd left her of his own will, or he had to look at the face of his dying partner and lie to her. 

The lie seemed easier.  "I escaped, Scully..." and then, with a try at lightheartedness, "I had to get here to see you." 

She smiled slightly.  "I tried . . . so hard, Mulder . . . to have the strength of your belief." 

He couldn't say anything more then, just sat and held her hand, regulating his breath carefully so that she couldn't hear him crying.  Her labored breathing evened into sleep, and he pressed his face into the side of the bed, feeling the unyielding plastic beneath the rough hospital sheets, and he wished that he could somehow have the last few weeks, months, back. Better yet, the last few years.  Maybe somehow there was something he could have done, way back in the beginning... 

He heard Skinner and Margaret entering the room quietly behind him. Visiting hours were over; only immediate family could stay, and Skinner offered him a ride home.  He was putting on his coat when Scully spoke again in the darkening room. 

"No, Daddy, its okay.  I chose it..." 

"Dana, honey, its Mom.  I'm here."  Margaret moved over to take up her position next to her daughter's bed. 

Scully's voice was soft and faraway.  "I was just talking to Daddy.  He was here a minute ago..." 

Skinner leaned close to Mulder and murmured "Her mind wanders sometimes." 

She'd seemed pretty lucid to Mulder, and he wondered what it was Scully was seeing. 

The next morning, he called in sick, reasoning that since he was probably still dead on paper, another day wouldn't matter.  He went straight to the hospital. 

Mrs. Scully stopped him outside the door.  Her face held more pain than anyone's ever should.  He actually felt his heart stop for a millisecond, plummet into his stomach, beat a few times there to stir it up, and then jump back to its right place, where it started hammering so hard he could hear it in his ears. 

"Fox, you're here just in time.  The nurses couldn't wake Dana when they came in this morning, and Doctor Stafford says it won't be long now."  she nodded at the younger woman who had come up to stand beside her. 

The doctor smiled slightly and said "Ask me how many months, how many weeks, I can't tell you.  Ask me how many days, I'm often wrong.  But ask me how many hours, and I know.  I expect that Dana will die sometime before noon." 

At that moment, Margaret saw someone over the doctor's shoulder and she moved, relieved, to greet him.  Turning, Mulder saw that Scully's brother had arrived, along with a pleasant-looking man in a clerical collar, carrying an official-looking bag. 

"I got through to Charlie on the ship; he's very sorry that he can't be here, but he says he'll be with us in spirit,"  Bill said, hugging his mother gently.  His look at Mulder was hostile, but his mother stared him down. 

"Fox, I know this is not . . . not your belief, but you're welcome to join us." 

Mulder followed the family and the priest into the room.  He sat quietly to one side as the priest took out the necessary things for last rites: oil and water, a candle and palm leaf and piece of bread. 

He'd never participated in religion;  as the child of an interfaith marriage he'd been raised without regularly practicing anything.  He wasn't sure what Scully would have thought of the ritual being played out around her;  until last year, he was sure she would have scoffed.  But he'd also seen in her a deep and abiding faith in something outside the realm of human comprehension.  He was sure that her mother would not have called the priest there if Scully hadn't, in some way, acquiesced, but he was also sure that Scully herself wouldn't have insisted upon it. 

Still, he found a strange comfort in watching the ancient preparations for death, the washing and anointing and prayers.  And after extreme unction, when Margaret, Bill, and the priest stood around the bed and read the litany at time of death, he found himself making the ritual responses with them. 

"Have mercy your servant." 

"Good Lord, Deliver her" 

"Have mercy on her." 

"Give her your peace . . ." 

"Into your hands, oh Lord, we commend her spirit." 

Mulder wished then that he knew something of his own to do, something that might ease the feeling growing in him.  When he was very small, before Samantha was even born, his mother had taken him to her parents' home after her father died.  He was too young to understand much, but his mother had explained what the strange words of the Kaddish meant, explained what was going on, and his memory retained the image of his uncles and their cousins, speaking the ancient verses in unison.  But the words were gone; he'd never been taught them, never been taught any of the rites of passage that people turn to at moments of transition.  He had no words of his own to give Scully. 

"The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil;    yea, it is even he that shall keep thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in,    from this time forth for evermore." 

The priest left then, on to other visits at the hospital, and the three of them were left, waiting in silence, watching Dana breathe slowly and shallowly. 

"I should have come back sooner, somehow."  Mulder muttered.  "If I'd been here, maybe..." 

"Maybe what?"  Bill challenged.  "Maybe my sister wouldn't have lost the will to live?  She started getting worse the day you 'died,' Mulder." 

Margaret's voice cut in between them, as effectively as if she'd physically intervened.   

"I *hate* that saying, 'lost the will to live,' Bill.  And do you know why?" 

Bill looked away, unable to meet her eyes. 

"Because when people say that with positive thoughts, you can beat cancer -- that if you concentrate or pray or meditate you can cause your body to fight it back, they're blaming people who *do* die for their own deaths. This was nobody's fault.  Not Fox's for being gone, not Dana's for losing the fight, not yours, Bill, for failing to protect your little sister. And not even mine." 

Bill hung his head, biting his lip. 

"This was something else, Bill.  This was God's will.  Or Fate, if you'd rather believe that.  Not one of us could have changed it." 

Mulder leaned back in his chair, suddenly remembering the day Melissa Scully had died, when he'd said nearly the same thing to Dana.  Fate.  The same fate that linked their souls in life after life, condemning her to die for his sake?  His sergeant, his father . . . who else before this life had died looking out for him, protecting him?  Instead of him? 

Margaret had turned towards him.  "And Fox, even if you weren't here earlier, you made it back in time.  She knew you were alive.  She knew you hadn't left her." 

He almost laughed, because he knew she knew nothing.  Scully had believed the lie -- again -- for the last time.  He had ditched her in the ultimate ditch, and she was going to die not even knowing it . . . he wished suddenly, irrationally, that he could experience her anger at being ditched one last time. 

Except that now, he was the one being left behind, and it was a terrible, lonely, feeling. 

Each of the watchers settled back into their chairs to continue their vigil. 

As morning passed, the spaces between Dana's breaths grew longer and longer, the breaths themselves shallower and quieter.  When they finally stopped, no one noticed at first.  Then they looked at each other, and at her, and each other, for a long minute.  Margaret pulled the oxygen mask off her daughter's face, Bill gently brushed the dirty hair away from the pale, still face.  And Mulder bent over and kissed his partner very softly on the lips. 

"I'm so sorry."  It was said to all the Scullys, living and dead.  He touched Margaret's shoulder lightly, nodded at Bill, and left the room. The nurses at the station down the hall looked up, and he knew they'd been leaving them alone, waiting.  Skinner was there too, talking quietly with the nurses, starting all the paperwork that accompanied a death. 

They looked a question at him; he answered with a nod, and continued walking away. 

She'd had the strength of his beliefs -- and it had killed her.  He hadn't believed she could fool their enemies, hadn't believed they'd actually let her die.  He hadn't believed she needed him. 

Now he had to make himself believe that she was gone. And to somehow bring himself to share her faith that death was nothing to fear.  He had some work to take care of, some things to straighten out, but he knew that sooner than later, he'd be testing that faith.   

He hoped, fervently, that they might be together again someday.  Whether it was in new bodies as their old souls repeated ancient mistakes, or on some different plane or higher level or 'heaven' didn't matter to him. At the very least, he wouldn't be alone any more. 

end 8/27/97

**Author's Note:**

> First posted 1997 to usenet's alt.tv.x-files.creative, in response to both the Cancer Arc and the flurry of fanworks that resulted from it. Cancer is one of those tropes that gets pulled out a lot to up the Drama Factor, and as I was living through the second cancer death of someone close to me in a short time, it got me thinking.  
> I've chosen not to go back and change much. It captures the shock and pain and revulsion of the time, which has softened with a lot of age. IT wasn't betaed at the time, but I did revise in response to discussion and emails from its original posting. IT's my last XF piece, and the one I'm probably the most proud of.
> 
> (original author notes):  
> I've been uneasy about the Cancer Arc since it began; it seems sometimes as though CC et al picked a disease without thinking through all the plot implications. Cancer isn't something to toss at people and miraculously cure them of. It's intensely unpleasant, generally doesn't manifest in ladylike little nosebleeds, and it kills people, slowly and often  
> painfully, after robbing them of their dignity and power. I *know*, I know-- its fiction, and paranormal fiction at that. But most cancer patients don't get to play all their scenes in the oncology departments of seemingly unpopulated hospitals that glow with otherworldly light. 
> 
> This was written for all of them, and for the friends and families who had to watch. 
> 
> I looked all over but couldn't find an actual written copy of the Catholic ritual for the dying; I used the description I did find, and have borrowed some words from the Book of Common Prayer, which I've found often parallels other liturgies. I hope this doesn't cause offense; it was meant with respect. I'm not a theologian or particularly observant, but  
> life's passages need rituals, and I made Scully's as Catholic as I could.


End file.
